{"id":197383,"date":"2026-03-19T04:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T04:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/197383\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T04:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T04:36:15","slug":"miami-ohio-cruises-past-smu-in-march-madness-first-four-matchup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/197383\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami (Ohio) cruises past SMU in March Madness First Four matchup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DAYTON, Ohio \u2014 Eian Elmer scored 22 points and Miami (Ohio) beat SMU 89-79 on Wednesday night in the First Four for its first NCAA Tournament victory in 27 years.<\/p>\n<p>Elmer went 6 of 9 from 3-point range as the 11th-seeded RedHawks (32-1), unbeaten during the regular season, advanced in the Midwest Region to play No. 6 seed Tennessee.<\/p>\n<p>Brant Byers added 19 points, including four 3s, and Luke Skaljac had 17 for Miami, making its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2007. <\/p>\n<p>Eian Elmer celebrates after a dunk during the second half of Miami (Ohio\u2019s) 89-79 win over SMU in a First Four game of the 2026 NCAA Men\u2019s Basketball Tournament at UD Arena on March 18, 2026 in Dayton, Ohio. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The RedHawks finished 16 of 41 from 3-point range.<\/p>\n<p>Miam (Ohio) player Brant Byers shoots a jumper during the second half of their win over SMU during a First <br \/>Four game of the men\u2019s 2026 NCAA Tournament. Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>Jackson Kotecki and Peter Suder hug and celebrate with teammates after the Redhawks\u2019 win over the Mustangs. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Jaden Toombs led SMU (20-14) with 20 points and 11 rebounds. Jaron Pierre Jr. scored 18 points and Boopie Miller had 15 for the Mustangs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DAYTON, Ohio \u2014 Eian Elmer scored 22 points and Miami (Ohio) beat SMU 89-79 on Wednesday night in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8294,33737,88351,123,125,124,20476,4700,110],"class_list":["post-197383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-college-basketball","tag-march-madness","tag-march-madness-2026","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-miami-university","tag-smu-mustangs","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}